So today was my almost-last day of nursing orientation. Should have been my last, but since I opted to leave the state instead of attending class on Friday, I have to go in this Friday to make up what I missed. Oh well. I'm getting really excited about starting work on the floor. I talked with my nurse manager yesterday and today, and she seemed really excited for me to start. I hope I like it! I'm sure I will. I'm slightly nervous about the fact that I'm leaving my comfort bubble of familiar faces, but I've been finding lately that meeting new people is quite nice as well. New beginnings excite me.

I love me a good bit of irony. Today should satisfy my fix for quite some time. Yes, on future days, when I am feeling slightly blue, I will look back on the events of this day and smile, or maybe even indulge in a hearty chuckle as I think to myself, "My, that was some quality irony." Funny how much can change in so little time.

Good news: Phyllis and I made it back from Missouri alive. And well rested. I cannot even begin to express in words how great it was to spend 2 days of my life doing absolutely nothing and not feeling the slightest bit guilty about it! It was a beautiful thing. Unfortunately, we didn't make it back with a goat. Looks like Brandon gets to keep his lawn mowing job. :) We did, however, rescue a goat who got his head stuck in the fence. And by we, I mean Phyllis, her mom, and her grandma. My contribution to the effort was calling her grandma to let her know the goat was stuck, then standing by watching the rest of them free it. I don't know much about goats. But I did learn that pregnant goats are very funny looking. And the baby ones will try to eat your fingers. Good times... Tomorrow it's back to real life. I still have 2 days of nursing orientation left, plus whatever I have to do to make up for missing Friday. Hopefully I'll be on the floor by the end of this week. I'm ready to feel like I'm really working.

I finally have furniture in my room. It feels like I live here now. Phyllis and I are leaving in approximately 6 hours for Missouri. 2 girls + 2 cats + 12 hours of driving = good times for all!!

I have officially survived hospital orientation. It wasn't as bad as anticipated. Some of it was a repeat of things I had already had, but there was some new stuff too. Scary stuff, like insurance benefits and whatnot. Am I really old enough to have to figure these things out? I guess so... Tomorrow starts nursing orientation. I'm actually pretty excited about that. A lot of people from my class got jobs at Hendrick too, so we'll all be together. Several of us were at hospital orientation together, and I think a few more will be joining us for nursing orientation. That will be fun. I like not being a total stranger. One of the things that really excites me about starting this new job is the idea of starting fresh. I love new beginnings. Even though I know people working at the same hospital, I am the only one from my class working on the pediatric unit. This means I will be working with people who have never met me, and have no pre-conceived ideas of who I am or what I'm like. I like the thought of that. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm thinking of trying to pass myself as someone I'm not. Actually, quite the contrary. I feel like a lot of my life has been spent filling the mold of who people thought I was or expected me to be. I've always been a big people pleaser, and I tend to act the same way as those around me in effort to "fit in." Recently, I began to feel very trapped in this way of living. Slowly, I have begun to come out of my shell and be the person I really am, as opposed to the person everyone has come to expect me to be. Talk about a life-altering decision! I am so much happier now than I ever was before! It hasn't all been rosy though. I have grown apart from people I used to be very close to. This makes me sad, but at the same time, I feel like that's ok. Time passes, people change, people grow apart. It doesn't mean anyone is wrong or bad, just different. And as I've grown apart from some people, I've grown so much closer to others. And I'm meeting a lot of new people too. It's pretty exciting. And this is the ironic thing: now that I am less afraid of being myself around people, and less afraid of whether or not people will like me, I find it a million times easier to get along with people, and find that people seem to like me better. Interesting how that works... Anyway, I say all this to say that I am very excited about starting this new phase in my life. I am excited about meeting new people and working in a field where I feel like I can actively make a difference in the lives of others. I know that God has put me exactly where I am for a reason, and I am excited to do my best to fulfill whatever purpose He may have planned for me. I have no idea what the coming weeks, months, and years will bring. But I know that as long as I keep following God, He won't lead me wrong.

Our house is now much closer to looking like a real house. We have paint in the living room, kitchen, bathroom, and my room. There is still work to be done, but the improvement is drastic. I'm pretty happy about it. Oh yeah, we have curtains too. Can't forget the curtains. I just signed up for a time to take my NCLEX. June 22, 8am. The time of judgment is approaching rapidly! Hopefully I will come out victorious. Tomorrow is my first day of Hendrick orientation. Good thing I've already been through it twice before...should be good times. Oh well. At least I'm getting paid for it this time. That will make it slightly more bearable. Oh, how I've missed the paychecks.

If hard work builds character, my roommates and I are going to be the most character-filled girls anyone has ever met! This week is wearing me out! Today we finished the furniture painting and began to prime the living room, aka the Great Hall. And that name is no joke. That room is huge! I thought we'd never finish. But we did. Now all we have to do tomorrow is finish priming the kitchen, prime Megan's bathroom, rip down the wallpaper in my room and Phyllis' and my bathroom, and prime both of those rooms. And finish up the pink room. And clean the entire house so that we can have people over tomorrow night without looking like total slobs...Oh man. We're going to die... But the good news is, hopefully the house will be done at the end of this weekend. The pink room is so close to completion it's not even funny. All we have to do is finish building and painting a couple pieces for the entertainment center, put the [alphabetized] DVD collection in the shelves, finish covering the small couch, and hang things on the walls. Sounds like a lot, but hopefully it won't take long. Then this weekend Megan's dad and little brother and his girlfriend are coming to finish up the painting of the rooms. My mom is coming as well, and hopefully my little brother and his girlfriend, so we're really hoping to get it all done. I don't think I'll know what to do with myself when we really do finish all our work on this place. All we've been doing all day everyday for the past couple of weeks is work on various aspects of the house. I've given sweat, blood, and the top layer of my skin to this place. It better be worth it! I'm sure it will be.

Note to self: next time you plan to be out in direct sunlight for an entire day, consider putting on some sunscreen. Why don't I think of these things before frying the entire upper half of my back? Why? I am in a wee bit of pain. I'm just hoping it decideds to fade into a nice tan instead of peeling off. I don't really have much desire to know what it feels like to be a leper. At least I worked for my burn. We spent the entire day in the back yard sanding and painting furniture. And yes, we did use a power sander. That's right: 3 girls, 1 power sander, 0 problems, 2 huge bookcases and 2 coffee tables sanded down to smooth, paintable perfection. We also got them all painted a lovely shade of black. They will look quite nice in our pink room. I'm quite excited.

Updates on life: I went in to Hendrick today and filled out 3 forests worth of paperwork for my upcoming employment. I was also subjected to a TB test and yet another drug screen. I hope I pass. :) Phyllis and I will be going to Missouri to visit her mom and grandma the weekend of May 26-29. We're taking her cats to live at the farm. With goats. I really want to steal a goat. I think it would greatly cut down on our lawn maintenance needs. But I guess that's what little brothers are for. :) The pink room has couches. Plural. And a chair, which we got out of the driveway of Meggido. It is slowly on its way to becoming a real room. I'm very excited about this fact. Hopefully in the near future our house will begin to resemble a real house. Apparently we are getting a trampoline tomorrow. I always wanted a trampoline. The real benefit of graduation is getting everyone's old stuff. I see that clearly now. Yesterday I got a new laptop. My old one was fine, except the CD drive didn't work. I took it in, and they told me they'd have to send it off to get fixed. They asked if I had accidental damage coverage. I said yes. They handed it back to me and told me to run over it. Apparently if the computer is damaged beyond repair, they can just give me a new one. This freaked me out. But I did it. Well, actually Phyllis did it. And she didn't run over it, she ripped the screen off. I almost cried. But I got a new computer, which is better than my old one, so I can't complain. I am exhausted.

So I am now officially a college graduate. Weird. This week has been exhausting!! I spent all day Monday through Thursday at 8-hour review sessions at school. Boo. I personally believe it is quite cruel to allow a person to take all their finals the week after spring break, release them into the work world for 4 or 5 weeks, so they just start to get used to not being in school anymore, only to force them back into a classroom for insane numbers of hours doing nothing but question-and-answer sessions. It's just not right. But I survived, so I'll stop complaining. Thursday night was the pinning ceremony. It was pretty nice, I guess. I managed to avoid falling down the outrageously steep aisle in the auditorium and made it across the stage without tripping, so I'll count it as a win. There were a couple of awkward moments througout the evening, but for different reasons. But all in all, it was a good night. Friday was graduation rehearsal and Friday night was the big Centennial Celebration at ACU. It was ok. The "Grand Processional" of graduates (which I opted not to participate in) was a little less than grand, and the laser show was more than a little cheesy, but Dr. Money has a decent sense of humor and one of the professors did a cartwheel in full graduation regalia, so I stayed pretty entertained. My official graduation was this morning at 11. Luckily, I got to be in the shorter graduation. Ours consisted of the colleges of Biblical studies, business administration, and nursing. I think we had about 1/3 the number of graduates as the afternoon graduation. How did I get so lucky? Of course all the fam came in for the festivities, but luckily our new house is plenty spacious enough to accomodate the crowd. It's just too bad we're not finished with all the repairs and such, so everyone had to look at it's current state of ugliness all weekend. Oh well. It's been a good weekend. Additional highlights include Megan's friend Gabe cooking dinner and breakfast for my entire family, and my little brother trying to set me up with his RA. Good times. Hopefully the summer will be a great one too!!

So I'm back in Abilene for real now. Just a week of review, graduation, and a week off before I start my real-person job. I'm so excited! Between now and then I'm hoping we can get our house in a normal condition. It's still in need of much work. And having furniture in my room would be nice too...

I feel like God has been trying to teach me a number of lessons lately. Most recent ephiphony: my value and worth as a person is not determined by other people or my relationships with them. God chose to create me and put me on this earth, and that makes me valuable. Not only that, he thinks I'm valuable enough to let his Son die so that I could have a relationship with him. That's pretty awesome! Now I know this all seems a bit elementary, and it is. It is something that I've always known, but only recently came to feel and understand. I realize now that I have wasted much time and energy trying to seek and secure the favor of other people. When I felt like someone liked me, I felt like I was worth more. If I felt rejected by someone, I felt like it was because I somehow wasn't good enough or worth enough to them. I lived in a pretty constant state of insecurtiy. Not fun. I feel like in the past few years I've taken great strides as far as becoming more confident and sure of myself, but it is still a constant effort. Lately I have felt especially tempted to return to my shell of insecurtiy, but that is the last place I want to be! I know that God created me on purpose and with a purpose, and I am excited to see what that looks like!

Anyone ever watch the show Honey We're Killing the Kids on TLC? I watched it tonight and it totally creeped me out. They follow this family that feeds their kids pretty much nothing but junk food and show them what their kids will look like when they're 40. Not attractive. I've known for a long time that I need to start eating better and start incorporating some sort of physical activity into my life, but this show made me feel like if I don't I'm dooming myself to a future of obesity and ugliness. Maybe I should watch it more often. It's definitely an effective motivator!

Hooray for my last day of precepting! Now all that stands between me and professional nursingdom is graduation and the NCLEX. This makes me smile. :)

Updates on life:

• Tomorrow is my last day precepting at Cooks. It's been such an incredible learning experience! I'm so glad I got to come here. I don't feel quite as inept anymore, and I think it has definitely helped prepare me for my upcoming job in pediatrics. That being said, I'm ready for it to be over. I'm ready to get back to Abilene and my awesome roommates and our awesome house. And I won't be missing the 6am commute to downtown Fort Worth.
• I graduate in 10 days. 10 days!! Wow. That's very soon. But I am very excited. No more school for me!!! Of course, that also means my official transition into adult life is rapidly approaching as well. However, I am much more excited and much less scared about this transition than I was just a few months ago. Look out world, here I come!
• The roommates and I have begun to undertake the massive project that is fixing up our house. I went to Abilene last weekend to help out a bit. We worked pretty much nonstop from the time of my arrival on Thursday to the time I left on Sunday. We got a lot done, but still have tons to do. It's going to be great when we get it all done. Come see it!
• Jackson is growing at an astronomical rate. He is going to be huge! It's great because he's still only 2 months old, so he hasn't quite figured out what to do with his ever-increasing mass. Result: the clumsiest puppy ever. I love it. He's also incredibly curious. The combination of these traits in a puppy who lives in a house that is currently in a constant state of change is quite amusing.
• I am very excited to see what God has planned for my life in the upcoming weeks, months, and years. It's crazy to me how much things have changed in my life in the past year or so. There have been lots of ups and downs. I now find myself in a place I never would have dreamed I would be just a few months ago! The best part is, even though I never would have pictured my life the way it has turned out, I am more excited about it now than I ever was about the ways I imagined it going! I guess that's what happens when you let God take the wheel. He takes you to places that are so much better than the places you could get to on your own. God is good!!